‘How Irish is Too Irish?’ ~ Caimh McDonnell #IrishWritersWed @Caimh

Finally its THAT Wednesday, the day I get to launch my new feature concentrating on Irish Writers.

Since I set up Swirl and Thread last year I have wanted to run a weekly feature that would concentrate on the wonderful writers that are homegrown in Ireland (mainly!!!). I didn’t feel I was established enough to host all these fantastic folk or that they would be willing to write a post for me…but I was wrong.

Ireland has always had the tradition of being a nation of storytellers and talkers. When I raised the possibility of running with this feature I was absolutley astounded and blown away by the feedback and enthusiasm of many, many Irish writers. I am delighted to say that it’s a booked out feature until the summer with places filling up for the early Autumn.

I approached Caimh McDonnell ‘pleading and begging‘ him to kickstart it 🙂 …and he obliged with this wonderful post on ‘How Irish is Too Irish?’

Without further ado the warm up act will move over and make way for the comedian, writer and all around funnyman that is Caimh McDonnell….

How Irish is Too Irish?

Here is a true confession. I have an Uncle Brendan who is an absolute delight; he is gloriously entertaining company and if I’m entirely honest, I can understand about two-thirds of what he says. My English wife gets about a third of what Brendan says – unfortunately it is not the third that I invariably miss out on. At best. His strong Cork accent and fax-machinesque delivery would turn Siri into a blubbering wreck in about thirty seconds flat.

At a wedding, not understanding Uncle Brendan isn’t that big of a problem. Between the gesticulations, tone of vshoice and the facial expressions, I can comfortably get the gist and laugh in the right places. As I discovered last year though, a funeral is considerably trickier. I spent the afternoon trying to keep my face in neutral, hoping to quickly adapt to wherever the story seemed to be heading. It felt like conversational Russian roulette, one smile in the wrong place and I would forever be the psycho in the family.

All this is by way of saying, accents and colloquial language are a minefield – both in general, and particular in writing. Every author has to make that decision with their characters, how ‘real’ do you go?

Personally, I don’t like the idea of losing somebody at any point in my work. My ‘target reader’ is me back when I had what my mother referred to as ‘a proper job’. I’m thinking of somebody standing on a train, trundling towards a job they hate, basked in the warm glow of someone else’s body odour. I want to make their journey as enjoyable as possible. In fact, I want them to miss their stop. To achieve that, I don’t want them getting pulled back to reality because they don’t understand what somebody just said. That means I’ve got to find the right balance of ‘bollixes’, ‘auld ones’ and ‘get up that gardens’ so that I don’t bamboozle my beloved reader.

Some authors of course manage to have their colloquial cake and eat it. Having just watched the brilliant Trainspotting 2 in the cinema, I was reminded that Irvine Welsh’s equally brilliant book is written in uncompromising full-on Edinburgh Ned-ese. My memory of the reading experience is that it took me a little while to fall into it but by the end, I was thinking in the voice of the characters even while I wasn’t reading the book. Having a little Begbie running around in your head is an alarming state of affairs. Similarly, when I started to re-read Roddy Doyle’s wonderful Barrytown Trilogy recently, I was stunned by how dense the language is. Even as a native Dubliner, it did take me a while to get into it.

Still though, as a relatively new author myself, I’m loath to present the reader with such a linguistic challenge right off the bat. To hurl them into the choppy water of full Dublin brogue and hope they’ll hang in there until they learn how to go with the flow seems a fairly big ask. I might be doing the rest of mankind a great disservice but in the age of overwhelming choice, from Netflix to YouTube to Sky boxes brimming with series-linked goodies, it feels like someone committing to read your book is a big leap of faith to begin with, I don’t want to give them any reason to reconsider.

I think having worked as a stand-up comic for 15 years really does help me judging what I can and can’t get away with. As someone who often speaks at an frantic pace, I’m all too familiar with that special kind of silence that means a room full of people have not understood what I’ve just said. It used be a horrible sinking sensation in my earlier gigs but these days I’m a lot less flap-prone, and I know I can make hay out of their confusion by pointing it out and then translating myself into international English.

I will say though, there is one compromise that I made in my books that really does bother me. The Gardaí have inspectors but through my research, I discovered they’re never referred to as such. The Irish for inspector is cigire and in casual conversation amongst themselves, Gardaí refer to an inspector as a ‘cig’.

Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out how to use that and then have it explained to the reader what was meant. For the tenth anniversary edition of my first novel, I may re-write it with a bonus couple of scenes – where an English prisoner is passing and asks for a cig – and they’ll all have a great laugh about it. It’s a terrible idea but it would add a wonderful touch of authenticity to proceedings.

Until then, inspectors are inspectors and there’s nothing I can do about it. I did also receive an irate email from an American reader who assured me that Irish people did not swear as much as they do in my books. That letter of response really did write itself.

Caimh thank you so much for this really humorous but also very insightful post on setting the appropriate tone for your characters when writing a novel. We have all read books where we find the stereo typical Irish ‘gombeen’, which in reality is no reflection of the truth of the Irish personality. We can be funny, we can be silly but stupid we are not 🙂

On Irish Writers Wednesday next week we have the wonderful Evie Gaughan penning a fabulous post on the whole reality of the writing process and the success and failures of doing so,

Until then, thank you so so much for dropping by and I really hope you join me next week and thereafter for #IrishWritersWed

About Caimh McDonnell:

Caimh McDonnell is an award-winning stand-up comedian, author and writer of televisual treats.
His writing credits include The Sarah Millican Television Programme, A League of Their Own, Mock the Week and Have I Got News for You. He also works as a children’s TV writer and was BAFTA nominated for the animated series ‘Pet Squad’ which he created. He was a winner in the BBC’s Northern Laffs sitcom writing competition.

During his time on the British stand-up circuit, he has firmly established himself as the white-haired Irishman whose name nobody can pronounce. He regularly supports Sarah Millican and Gary Delaney on tour and has also brought the funny worldwide, doing stand-up tours of the Far East, the Middle East and Near East (Norwich).

I’m nearly in tears Kate. TY so much for that. I’ve some fab writers on the horizon….Trad & Self-Published so should be a good mix. I’m delighted you like it. Will have email sub set up at some point soon so that should make it easier for folk. Thanks again Kate. You’re a star. xx

Brilliant guest post. I love Irish accents though must admit some are harder for me to understand than others. Could you tell me what ‘arra’ means as it is in a book I’m reading just now and I haven’t come across that before.

Thanks a mill Joanne. ‘Arra’ would be used like this ‘Arra would you go on outta that’ ‘Arra get outta me hair’….just a local way of starting the sentence when someone might be annoying you or you are questioning what they have said/done as an example….that make any sense???

This definitely resonates with me. In very early drafts of my first novel I included a glossary to explain what all the sham-feens, flah-bags, etc., meant… that was because it was being written for assessment in Edinburgh University and I wanted to make sure it was understood! Since then I realised that a lot has changed even since the eighties when I was in school in The Mon – there was a lot of feens, beors, lamping, etc. I’m not sure if there is as much of that now as I remember as culture gets dilluted and kids get a bit more suburban. I dropped the glossary and made sure that when using colloquialisms it was appropriate for the character and didn’t go overboard with it – enough to give the dialogue a bit of character / locale without overwhelming the reader; it’s a difficult challenge.

The first time I visited Ireland in the 80’s and met my husband’s wider family I suspect they thought I was an idiot, I spent most of the time smiling and saying nothing as I couldn’t understand half of what was being said. Having since spent many holidays in Ireland (County Clare and West Cork), watched many hours of RTE and read my way through many ‘Irish’ books (Caimh’s first is still waiting patiently on my Kindle) – I’m thankfully now better tuned in. Of course that still doesn’t guarantee they don’t think I’m an idiot.

We love you Jill 🙂 An idiot you are not!! Thank you so much for your support. I’ll throw a few begorra’s your way just to confuse you. xx
ps. email sub on test mode. Hopefully set up by end of week. I’ll let you know. xx